In re B.F. CA4/2

I.

INTRODUCTION

This is a second appeal by J.F. (Father) involving the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1 1978 (ICWA) (25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.). In his first appeal, case No. E079928, we

conditionally reversed the juvenile court’s legal guardianship order as to Father’s

daughter B.F. and remanded the matter for the Riverside County Department of Public

Social Services (DPSS) and the court to comply with its duty of initial inquiry under state

law implementing the ICWA. In this appeal, Father, once again, contends that upon

remand, neither DPSS nor the juvenile court complied with the ICWA and related state

ICWA statutes because no inquiry was made of some known relatives, and thus there is 2 insufficient evidence to support the court’s finding ICWA did not apply.

We conclude Father forfeited his objection in this appeal to ICWA inquiry

compliance, because it was raised in his previous appeal, with a conditional remand to

correct the ICWA deficiencies, and Father failed to object again to ICWA compliance in

the lower court during the remittitur hearings. We also find any error on remand was

harmless. We therefore affirm the finding that ICWA does not apply and the…